Lullabies for the Dead: Act I
by sakemori
Summary: "Haven't you ever wondered why my father says caring's not an advantage, Doctor Watson?" "Because he's a huge prick?" I shake my head with a small smile. "No. Because people like us are generally hurt due to the way our brains work." The Army doctor tilts his head in confusion with his brows furrowed. "People only use us. It's better to not be attached to those outside of family."
1. Preface

_"Haven't you ever wondered why my father says caring's not an advantage, Doctor Watson?"_  
 _"Because he's a huge prick?"_  
 _I shake my head with a small smile. "No. Because people like us are generally hurt due to the way our brains work."_  
 _The Army doctor tilts his head in confusion with his brows furrowed._  
 _"People only use us for our intelligence. It's better not to be attached to those outside of family and even then family can harm you."_

* * *

I know I have other fanfictions I need to finish for other fandoms but this plot bunny just won't hop away so I'd figure I'd get it out of the way now.

Random updates to be expected. This fanfiction won't be my first priority.

 **Preface**

 _"Sherlock, she down! She's been hit!" Doctor Watson's voice cries over the sound of gunshots. I land hard on my stomach as fire spreads through my right shoulder and the left side of my chest, a wet warmth following right after. I clench my teeth to keep from making a single sound of agony from passing through but can't stop the chest-rattling cough from escaping._

 _It seems the bullet is stuck in my lower lung._

I'm dying and yet everything is running through my mind crystal clear. My mind has disconnected me from my body which is currently going through shock. It's almost as if it's not even happening.

It's enough to make me wonder whether or not the same will happen to Papa and Uncle when the time comes actually...

 _"Go to her, John!" Uncle's deep baritone sounds close by as my body is forcibly turned over onto my back. "I'll cover you!"_

 _More coughs escape, that familiar metallic taste on my tongue called blood with it, causes the good doctor's eyes to widen as he takes off the hoodie I bought him three months ago off and presses it against my chest for pressure to try and staunch the bleeding._

He's scared for me and yet highly focused on the task at hand. His training is shining through.

In one moment, he's going to call out to Uncle about my condition and the severity of the situation. Knowing Uncle, he'll have his phone out on speaker so Papa can hear what's going on.

He won't be pleased to learn that I've gotten hurt like this again. Uncle and his blogger will get a scolding because of it.

 _"Sherlock, she needs a hospital right now! One bullet passed through her right shoulder and the other is currently lodged in her left lung! She's coughing up blood!"_

 _"Back-up is on the way! Keep her breathing, John! Keep her awake! Don't let her lose consciousness!"_

 _"I know that already, Sherlock!"_

My heart rate has picked up and my breathing has become irregular. It's also starting get cold now, the world is spinning even through I'm laying down, and my vision is blurring. That and Doctor Watson also looks highly alarmed and is even paler than he was a few minutes ago. Severe blood loss is the only logical conclusion.

Uncle and Papa would be proud. Even while dying, I'm still deducing everything going on around me. It's the ultimate proof that I have the Holmes mind.

 _"...-line, stay... me... -elp is... -n the... -ay... -eep... open!... -line!"_

The sounds have dulled. Even the gunshots are starting to sound like echoes of themselves now. I'm actually having problems piecing together what Doctor Watson is saying. That's a bit not good.

 _"Ani-" Uncle Sherlock's face appears in my line of blurry vision. I can kind of feel his hand caressing my hair and face._

His silvery eyes are wide and his hands are shaking. He's really frightened for me. Uncle Sherlock is completely and utterly panicking right now.

How strange to see...

 _"Un-" a coughing fit stops what I'm trying to say, blood splattering the pale faces above me. I can barely feel the hands touching my body as the coughing continues and doesn't stop._

I can feel my heart speeding up and becoming irregular. It will stop soon. I can't really breathe anymore. My vision is now cutting in and out and my hearing is completely gone...

It's so cold. Why is it so cold?

...I don't want to die. Uncle Sherlock? Can you hear me? I don't want to die. Please, Uncle Sherlock! Don't let me die!

 _"Aniline!"_

... Please...


	2. Chapter One: John's Epiphany

**_SCENE I SUMMARY_**

 _"I can hear Mama crying out in pain even now, Doc..."  
_ John can't help but clench a fist at her traumatized look as he continues to watch the video she made for him only three days earlier.  
 _"...And it was all my fault."_

* * *

 **A/N:** The summary above is the summary for the _entire_ Scene I. I'm not kidding. It's your only hint you're gonna get until the next Scene. I'm playing this out like that of a play. Each book will have five scenes but one Act. There will be six Acts and three Plays.

Also, I guarantee that my research on lung and chest surgery is not up to par. You can only learn so much from Google, Wikipedia, and medical research sites without the actual know-how that surgeons automatically teach and are taught in school. Sue me. I'm going off of common sense and what I got from House M.D. plus the sites I named above.

 **Act I Scene I: Mama's Lullaby**

Chapter One: John's Epiphany

NOV. 3rd, 2008

Crestenfeld, Missouri 

United States of America

9:30 pm 

Dear Stevie (yes I changed your name again. What of it?),

I think this was the best birthday celebration so far. As usual, it's just Mama and I with a strange little packed sent from a M. Holmes just like every other year. One of these days I'll figure out who they are so I can send a proper thank you note as I was taught. Mama always laughs when I say that but it really is only a matter of time until I find the man.

Oh, didn't I tell you? It's most definitely male handwriting, even if it is kind of loopy. It's very... harsh and controlled. Almost as if they have severe OCD (don't even start on me. I already know I have it, you jerk!) and are obviously in a position of power, quite possibly government...

Someone just broke into the house. I need to get to my emergency cell phone but it's by the squeaky part of the floor. I can't get to it without alerting the men downstairs that I'm up here.

I'll continue writing later. I have to hide and pretend I'm somewhere else now, just like Mama taught me, but I'll still have you with me.

Lina

* * *

 _"People always say that my uncle and father don't care like normal people," Aniline called over her shoulder, her dark auburn hair fanning out in the sunlight as she met John Watson's eyes head on._

 _"I can see how, Aniline. Can't you?" John asked as he stuffed his hands into his new hoodie (the only hoodie he's owned in years, really) and followed behind the teenaged girl. Said teen only have him a sad, disappointed look her silvery-blue eyes hooded in slight misery._

 _"You don't get what it is I'm saying, do you? And by the time you do..."_

 _The good doctor only stared at her in confusion and curiosity. He didn't make the connection in where the teenager genius was going._

 _Aniline Holmes couldn't help but sigh slightly. John caught it and tilted his head a bit._

 _"It'll already be too late to save one of us."_

 _"What do you mean, Aniline?"_

 _Aniline only gave a wane smile in answer before continuing her Holiday shopping._

* * *

John is running on autopilot at this point and time as he utilises the skills he learned from med school and Afghanistan during his tours before he got shot trying to save a soon-to-be teenage doctor, The Skull Crushers, the street gang they were trying to hunt down, had already been neutralised by Mycroft's men.

"Aniline!" Sherlock shouts but it seems a little far away. He can't help but think of three months ago as he staunches the bleeding in her right shoulder while demanding for a surgery kit. He needs to operate now if they want any chance for her survival to a hospital.

"Where is that blood ambulance! Doctor Watson, status report!" Mycroft's voice cuts through the haze immediately snapping him into attention while working on the bright girl below him.

"Two bullet wounds. One passed through the right shoulder, and the other lodged in her lower left lung. There seems to be internal bleeding and her lung is filling with fluid. I need a tube!" He doesn't bother looking up to see their reactions as he keeps an eye on her. A surgery kit and a plastic tube are set down on a clean town next to him already sterilised.

"John, what do we do?" Sherlock asks as he hovers over his blogger in worry. He doesn't stop what he's doing as he thinks of what the two Holmes brothers can do to be helpful while staying out of his way.

"Mycroft! I need this area clear for me to work. I can't have people trying to get involved, not unless you want Aniline to die. Sherlock! I need an assistant in handing me tools and wiping away blood. I need you to pretend that this is just a random body we're operating on. Can you do that?"

"Yes," they both answer at the same time and he gets straight to work. The noise around him fades in and out seamlessly as he cuts open her shirt and begins to stitch her shoulder closed on both sides. He gives instruction to Sherlock as Mycroft keeps not only his own people back but the Yarders and everyone else as well. It doesn't know how long it takes to due each side, perhaps ten minutes each, before he has Sherlock wrap her shoulder. He moves to her chest next and cuts off her bra, ignoring her developing breasts as he feels around the bullet hole. His first instinct is right. It's lodged in her lower left lung and it's filling up with fluid. He makes incisions in her chest for the tube so he can not only drain the blood but also insure that she can breathe out of both lungs.

"Tube," he demands with a hand out and Sherlock passes it to him without a word. John doesn't need to be a deductions genius to know that his eyes are riveted on Aniline Holmes' chest. He inserts the tube to drain the blood to the ground next to him before familiar expensive shoes come into his line of sight and place a sterile bedpan right next to him. He proceeds to drain the blood there instead. He leaves the tube in, after taping and stitching around it to insure it doesn't move and cause more harm than good, for continuous draining and takes a pair of surgical tweezers to root around her lung for the bullet. It needs to come out before any surgery can be done. It takes him a little while to find it and take it out and he's praying that there are no pieces that he needs to fish around for. He doesn't have the time or resources to do that and ensure that the young doctor-in-training doesn't die before she really needs to.

Once he checks the bullet to see it relatively whole, he proceeds to cut open her chest and get to work on her lung. He has a hole to patch up so she can get to the hospital long enough for them to do the actual work to keep her alive indefinitely. He doesn't know how long he kneels there on the dirty, blood-covered, concrete as he demands for certain tools to work on her lung and chest before he finds it suitable enough for movement to the ambulance, but more importantly, for the hospital.

"Get her out of here! She should survive the trip long enough to get her to A&E!" he calls out and wipes off his hand with a towel that Sherlock silently hands him before getting up to his feet with a grimace and a small groan. His knees are killing him. he watches as Mycroft follows after the paramedics that lift her onto the trolley and cart her into the back of the ambulance not far off. He gets in behind her and beckons John and Sherlock after him. John pushes Sherlock in the back to get him moving after he stands there in a slight daze and watches as he lover practically jumps into the ambulance behind his older brother.

"Do you want a ride to the hospital or back home, John?" D.I. Lestrade asks softly behind him and he turns to glance at the older male before looking down at himself. He grimaces at the slime and blood covering his clothes and body. He wants to go home to clean off the blood so Sherlock and Mycroft doesn't have to see it and be reminds of their shared precious person or he can just follow them right away to see how the girl's doing after operating on her here on the pavement outside this warehouse.

"Home, please," he says after a moment of debating. He'd rather do it this way anyway. he doesn't need even more of a reminder of his complete and utter failure himself.

He's starting to get what Aniline was saying three months ago now. If she doesn't survive this... John isn't sure whether the Holmes brothers would either.

And that in of itself is a terrifying thought.


	3. Chapter Two: A Time of Remembrance

**I am so sorry this is kinda late! I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on the 21 late evening last month and haven't gotten my timing right yet with her and everything else. But! I was able to get a chapter out so... Yay?**

Chapter Two: A Time of Remebrance

May 3rd, 2010

Manchester, England

Great Britain

1:30 pm

Dear Diary,

It's almost been two years since Mama's murder and almost two years since I was placed under witness protection with my aunt as my guardian. Aunt Cassidy... Has become even crueler. It feels as if I'm a female version of Harry Potter, with no magic. I now sleep in the cramped attic (instead of a boot cupboard under the stairs but not much better) and am to always be quiet. When I become a "woman", I am to earn my keep with my body. Until then I have to clean the entire house and cook all of the meals. At least I'm fed three meals a day no matter what and allowed to read whatever books I find in the attic, so that's something I guess.

I... I wish I had never told her about the crime I saw committed that day on my way home from the town library. Maybe then, she wouldn't have called the police and gotten killed for being an eyewitness. Maybe then I wouldn't have been placed in witness protection with my horrid aunt for not only witnessing the murder of my mother but the murder of a NYPD detective at the hands of the Russian mob.

I have to go. Aunt Cassidy wants me to cook an extravagant dinner for her and her... friends, if I can call them that.

Aniline

* * *

It hurt. It hurt so bad to see this young woman being wheeled into the hospital on a gurney dying from gunshot wounds and blood loss. The fact that he and John beat the damn ambulance to the hospital after a pit stop at John's and Sherlock's flat makes it even worse. Someone so full of life shouldn't be suffering such a thing as a near death experience and yet... Here she is.

It was only yesterday that it seems like he met the vivacious spitfire known as Aniline Snaps before she decided to change her last name to match her two most favorite people in the world. How carefree she seemed and so cheerful. Not at all like her father and uncle. She showed such promise in her determination to become the youngest know doctor in this day and age that... he actually believed she could do it. But now...

Now, it feels as if she might never wake again. It's such a horrifying thought that he can't even shake it loose from his mind. he never should have agreed to allow her to accompany Sherlock on his crime scenes and cases. Maybe then she wouldn't be in this position and studying at Cambridge to get even further in her medical classes instead.

* * *

 _He had no choice but call in the strange junkie kid this time around. Even his superiors were stumped as to how they were murdered in a completely sealed off panic room. Detective Greg Lestrade expected Sherlock Holmes to come looking somewhat high and shooting off rapid-fire deductions of the crime scene. What he didn't expect was a small wisp-like girl child with light auburn hair tied up in pigtails and big doe-like blue-gray eyes that glanced around with a calculated gaze at everyone she saw, as if she were weighing their worth or usefulness and finding them lacking._

 _"Sherlock! The kid can't be on a crime scene!" he couldn't help but shout out. Sherlock's light gray eyes latched onto his face immediately before glancing at the bodies on the metal floor again. "Oi?! Do you hear me, Sherlock?! She can't be hear!"_

 _"Did the Freak kidnap you from your mum and dad then, sweetheart? Do you have a number I can call so they can pick you up and press charges?" Sally Donovan asked the small child as she crouched down in front of her to make herself seem more trustworthy and less frightening. The venomous look the girl shot her caused Greg's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise. He didn't expect the kid to defend the junkie in all honesty._

 _"Don't mind the imbeciles, Aniline," Sherlock called without turning around to see what was going on behind him. "They can't help but think they see what's truly going on."_

 _"That was quite obvious, thanks," she said with a dry tone, her accent American. Sherlock huffed in slight amusement causing Greg's eyebrows to climb higher._

 _"Is she part of your homeless network then?" he asked definitely even more curious than before. Sherlock gave him a scathing look in reply to a question he obviously thought was idiotic before going back to analyzing the bodies. He could hear the mysterious Aniline snickering in the background with her back turned away from him but decided to ignore her in favor of giving the allusive Sherlock Holmes his complete attention._

 _"Are you babysitting her?"_

 _"Obviously not, George! Now, hush!" Sherlock snapped._

 _"So... Who exactly is she then, Sherlock?" Greg couldn't help but ask even though he had the strange feeling it's going to come back to bite him in the arse._

 _he was proven right when Aniline looked at him finally with a slightly mischievous smile playing about her lips. "So you're the famous George Lestrade! Uncle Sherlock has told me much about you and your team's incompetence."_

 _"It's Greg actually," he said with a small huff of annoyance before the rest of her words caught up with him. "Wait. You have a bloody niece?! Why didn't you tell me that one of you guys spawned a child?! And my team isn't incompetent!"_

 _The little ten year old girl laughed lightly and patted him on the arm consolingly. "I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but I believe your forensics guy just stepped on some evidence, Detective. Your teams really is mostly made up of idiots. But that's totally okay! You have my uncle and I to fix their mistakes for you!"_

* * *

And that was how he met the little girl that could steal the heart of anyone she met... Including his own, apparently. It's killing him to look at the kid laying on the hospital bed pale as can be but there is nothing he could do about it. Except push for the harshest punishment he could for those who put her there.

He'd make sure of that or his name isn't Gregory Dustin Lestrade!

* * *

 **And that is the recent chapter! I have no idea if I got Greg right in all honesty. But eh. What can you do?**

 **The next chapter will probably be in Sherlock's POV. I'm not sure yet. This story is already taking a completely different turn that what I had panned out for it so...**

 **Review and make a new mama happy?**


	4. Interlude One

**So... I may have accidentally turned this into a crossover with James Bond... Oops?**

 _The Secret Uncle _

It was a relatively sunny day for London, not the type of day you'd expect bad news, when Sherringford "Q" Holmes got the call from his eldest brother. He was the handler for his lover in Q Branch when his personal cell phone went off, the ringtone from the movie "Psycho". It was enough to give him a brief pause while instructing James Bond, 007, out of an explosive-rigged building. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his left middle finger, fixed his slightly rumpled cardigan, and passed the comms onto R before answering.

"Mycroft, to what do I owe the _pleasure_ of this phone call?"

"Aniline is in the A&E," was the prompt reply.

The entirety of Q Branch watched their Overlord in concern when his spine suddenly stiffened and he began to gather his things haphazardly into his messenger bag, his phone stuffed between his right ear and shoulder as he asked sharply, "What is her current status and _how_ did she get this injured?"

"Critical, brother mine. She is currently in surgery due to a bullet in her left lung and a hole in her right shoulder. She was with Sherlock and John Watson while they were chasing a street gang infamously known for their drug smuggling."

There was another small pause as Q Branchers exchanged startled glances when Q snapped, "And you _honestly_ thought it was a _smart idea_ to allow a _sixteen year old girl_ to follow _Sherlock Holmes_ around on his cases when they are usually so **_dangerous_**?!"

"I had never thought that Sherlock-"

"You do know better than that, _brother dear_. I'm on my way to St. Barts now. Sooth M's soon-to-be ruffled feathers for me, won't you?" And with that, he hung up on this mysterious brother and hastily made his way out of Q Branch without another word.

"Did he say Mycroft? As in _Mycroft Holmes_?!" one minion cried and then pandemonium struck.

 **So thoughts? Does Q as a Holmes work?**


End file.
